9/30/2011

Workshifting From a Virtual Office Benefits Small Businesses

How can workshifting benefit your small business? That’s the question Citrix asked its vice president of corporate marketing, Kimberly M. Woodward. Let’s listen in to the answer:

“While any employee appreciates the benefits of more flexible work arrangements, such as the ability to work at home part or all of the time, the payoff for the business is also considerable. A workshifting policy can aid recruiting, employee productivity, satisfaction, and retention, and support diversity by making it possible to recruit the best talent in all corners of the world. It can also help business reduce capital and operating costs, especially in organizations that use virtual desktops to enable employees to bring their own device to work, and to use that device interchangeably and securely for work and personal tasks.

“Virtual meetings are already a well-established practice for business. Last year, more than 100 million people experienced a virtual meeting or support session powered by Citrix. By moving meetings from the conference room to the web, organizations can support real-time collaboration between dispersed co-workers and keep in close touch with customers and partners. Culturally, organizations benefit from a sense of cohesion and unity, while saving time and travel costs

“On an organizational level, workshifting accelerates business velocity by moving a process from one location to another—for example; having a sales rep process leads and orders directly from a trade show or placing a dedicated employee on-site at a customer location. At times of peak demand, the ability to share work across additional workers—or move it offshore for round-the-clock productivity—can provide crucial added capacity. Shifting lower-value tasks from highly skilled employees to hourly workers can reduce costs and improve efficiency.

“Just as virtualization technology enables workshifting for individuals, it also plays a key role in shifting workloads and processes to more optimal people or locations. Since computing resources are run, managed and secured centrally; data, applications, and complete virtual desktops can be made available instantly to any number of users in any location with no need for physical shipments or specialized local IT resources.”

Once again, I agree with Woodward. Virtual office space and virtual office technologies make alternative workplace strategies and workshifting a reality. And it’s a reality whose time has come. Round-the-clock productivity is the Holy Grail for American businesses. With workshifting, virtual assistants, virtual receptionists, and other virtual office technologies, the reality is, well, a reality.

Check out how workshifting works in real life:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8NcyYgI3Qc&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PL73D559F7A74860A8[/youtube]

This entry was posted in Virtual Office and tagged flexible hours, home-based business solutions, mobile workforce, telecommuting, virtual office, virtual offices, workshifting, on September 30, 2011 by Jennifer LeClaire

About Jennifer LeClaire

Jennifer LeClaire is a veteran business journalist, editor and new media entrepreneur with a strong niche in real estate and technology.

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